XI. 1775. BOOK whom the command of the invading forces now devolved, contrived through the whole winter to maintain the blockade of Quebec and it was not till the arrival of the following year and of strong reinforcements to the British army from Europe, that he and his American troops, successively abandoning post after post, were finally compelled to evacuate Canada.1 Among all the scenes of war to which the quarrel between Britain and America gave rise, this expedition was honourably distinguished both by the intrepid valour and endurance of the Americans, and (with the exception of the indignities inflicted on Allen) by the generous concern and respect for each other, mutually demonstrated by the belligerent forces. The Americans warmly celebrated the merits of Carleton as a magnanimous foe, and ascribed to his undisguised abhorrence of the employment of Indian auxiliaries, the policy which, unfortunately for Britain, prompted her ministers to divest him of his command and preferably entrust it to General Burgoyne. The Canadian expedition of the Americans and its result, misrepresented by the folly and insolence of Burgoyne, induced the British cabinet to entertain a very erroneous view of the importance and facility of hostile operations in this quarter; and in the sequel exerted a very injurious influence on its military policy,-which, instead of directing the British forces to act with combined vigour upon one point, divided them into two armies of which the operations were totally unconnected, and of which the one was appointed to invade America in front from the sea coast, while the other descending from Canada by the lakes, attempted from the rear to penetrate into the interior of the revolted provinces. Aan. Reg. for 1775 and for 1776. Gordon. Ramsay. Holmes. Williams' Hist. of Vermont. Pitkin. This last cited work, though invaluable from the access to novel and important American documents which its writer has enjoyed, is rendered extremely perplexing to ordinary readers by its negligent composition and disregard of chronological arrangement. 2 Carleton learned from his own feelings and understanding, what Burgoyne ascertained by a lamentable experience, that the vindictive and ungovernable fury of the Indians was more fitted to provoke rage and despair, than to inspire fear or recommend submission. Popular feeling and public policy in America.—American negotiations with France. Conclusion. V. 1776. OUR historical progress has at length conducted us to the CHAP. last year, during any part of which even the shadowy phantom of political union subsisted between Britain and the provinces of North America. For more than ten years the parent state had by a series of most impolitic measures prolonged a quarrel of constantly augmenting bitterness with her colonies, and provoked them to demonstrate a more and more determined resistance to her authority. Since the refusal of Popular the Americans to submit to the Stamp Act in 1765, the temper public pofeeling and and deportment of both parties disclosed a reciprocal and licy in progressive hostility and every year had enlarged the numerical force of the partizans of America, confirmed their resolution, and extended the compass of their democratic thought and purpose. In this country a whole generation had grown up from youth to manhood since the controversy began. Their education during this period had not inculcated the respect that was formerly entertained for the parent state; and with the fearless generous spirit of youth they warmly embraced the interests of liberty, and hailed the prospect of their country's independence. Nor was the general ardour 1 Almost all the young men in America were ardent patriots. At the commence-. ment of the war, the college of New Jersey was deserted by many of its students, who rushed to join the ranks of the American army. No small surprise and admiration was excited in America by the discovery that some of the ablest and most eloquent compositions in support of liberty that were published in the year 1774, were the productions of Alexander Hamilton a student at New York college, only America. XI. 1776. BOOK for liberty confined to the more youthful inhabitants, or even to the stronger sex in America: it glowed in the gentle bosoms of women, and triumphed over the feebleness and timidity of age. The female inhabitants of the county of Bristol in Massachusetts raised and equipped a regiment at their own expense. The oldest German colonists at Philadelphia formed themselves into an armed company of veterans; and in the election of their officers gave the command to a man nearly an hundred years of age. While the Americans of British descent were transported with indignation by the intelligence that Britain had drawn a mercenary host from Germany to invade them, the colonists of German origin experienced no distraction of sentiment from this prospect: their zealous attachment to the adopted country where they had found liberty and happiness, was not abated by the hostility with which it was menaced from the instruments of that tyranny whence they themselves had originally sought a refuge in America. This country at present exhibited the singular spectacle of a people professing allegiance to a distant monarch, whose commands they had for ten years openly disobeyed; zealously adhering to a domestic government which that monarch denounced as a traitorous usurpation; and maintaining an army avowedly raised to fight his troops, already engaged in battle with them, and latterly employed in the invasion of his territories. A state of things so heterogeneous could not subsist much longer; and notwithstanding the exertions that were made to bridle the impetuosity of the partizans of independence, this great consummation was rapidly maturing, and became with more certainty from day to day the substantial though unacknowledged purpose of the Americans. Nay its advancement was promoted even by the exertions of the moderate and temporizing politicians, and the concessions which they obtained from the more ardent party of their countrymen. Professions of loyalty to the king induced the timid and doubtful to acquiesce in measures which practically realized independence, and rendered a speedy and open declaration of it inevitable. An attitude was gradually assumed, maintained, seventeen years of age. This young man in the present year entered the American army as an officer of artillery. He rose to the rank of general, and was afterwards highly distinguished as a soldier, a statesman, and a political writer. V. 1776. and improved, from which it was impossible to retreat without C H A P. certain ruin, or to advance without the assertion of national independence. Various symptoms had of late betokened the approaching birth of this event. Paine and other popular writers, in works which were extensively read and relished, attacked the principle of regal government with energetic reprobation and ingenious ridicule; and animated the Americans to declare themselves an independent people,-supporting the legitimacy and exalting the dignity of this claim by every consideration that could prove it to their reason or wed it to their desire. In electing members to the second congress, the people of Maryland expressly charged their delegates not to consent to the assumption of independence unless they found a majority of the congress convinced of the expediency of that measure and determined to embrace it. The inhabitants of the county of Mecklenburgh in North Carolina, on learning the affair of Lexington, embraced and published a violent resolution, declaring themselves independent and all political connexion with Britain dissolved. The project of independence was discussed in every province and assembly, and daily gained partizans. Drayton, whom the assembly of South Carolina had now appointed chief justice of this province, in a charge delivered by him to a grand jury, thus expressed himself:-" The Almighty created America to be independent of Great Britain: let us beware of the impiety of being backward to act as instruments in the Almighty hand now extended to accomplish his purpose." All these symptoms of public feeling were watched with interest and cherished with policy by the prevailing party in the national congress, which without ever expressly alluding to independence, except in professions that they were not aiming at it and would fain avoid it, only waited a fit juncture for asserting this pretension with the greatest possible efficacy. Before taking so critical a step, it highly imported them to assure themselves with extraordinary wariness and care of finding a firm and stable footing in the perilous path which it would pledge them to tread. Anticipating the approaching rupture, and desirous to fortify their country by every possible means against the shock of a terrible and inevitable conflict, the American congress had XI. 1776. BOOK for some time directed their attention to the acquisition of foreign succour. In the month of November of the preceding year, a committee consisting of Franklin, Jay, Dickinson, Harrison, and Johnson, was appointed for the purpose of holding a secret correspondence with the friends of America. in Great Britain, Ireland, and other parts of the world. The real object of this committee was to sound the views, inclinations, and purposes of the principal powers of Europe, and particularly of France and Spain, with respect to the American controversy; and if possible obtain from them assistance or a pledge of it in a war for American independence. The requiAmerican site negotiations commenced immediately after by a correstions with pondence between Franklin and a Frenchman of his acquaintance named Dumas who resided in Holland and was known to be friendly to the American cause: and they were attended with such promising results, that in the spring of the present year Silas Deane, one of the deputies to congress from Connecticut, was secretly despatched by the committee as political agent for America to the court of France,-where he continued to discharge this important function till the exercise of it was openly acknowledged, and confided to worthier hands by the mission of Franklin and Arthur Lee to Paris after the declaration of independence. negotia France. The contagious influence of revolutionary movements in behalf of liberty, appears to have been very little understood or regarded by the cabinets of Europe at this period. It required indeed a greater diffusion of knowledge than yet existed, together with an efficacious machinery for the circulation of sentiment and opinion (subsequently afforded by the maturity of the periodical press) in order fully to develope that important principle of social life, which has no perceptible existence in a barbarous and illiterate age. All the commercial states of Europe, as we have already frequently remarked, were interested in the destruction of the British monopoly of American commerce; and of late they had begun more highly to appreciate by partially obtaining the advantage of that catastrophe. In proportion as the breach between Great Britain and America had been widened, the contraband trade between America and those states had increased; and it was now yielding to them an extent of profit which they ardently |